Classic Reads Book Club Feed

The Good Earth, Discussion the Last

Sadly, we’ve come to the end of The Good Earth, and I’m curious how many of you had your hearts ripped out?! I won’t go into a ton of detail and spoilery fun about the ending, but we’ve essentially witnessed Wang Lung’s demise. I bet some of the questions I’ve asked or hinted at before are beginning to come into focus.

Namely, how did education impact this story? Specifically, how did education impact Wang Lung’s sons and their actions near the end of the book?

What was the land worth to Wang Lung in the end?

What did you think of the ending? Was it a satisfying and rightful conclusion to the book? Sometimes tragedy is poetic, and sometimes individuals feel as if they’ve had their time stolen. Was it a waste of time for you given the ending?

More to come on Pearl S. Buck herself tomorrow!

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I’m still chewing on the ending…it certainly didn’t end happily but I don’t think there was another way. If it had all ended “nicely,” it wouldn’t have been realistic. Wang Lung saw education as something he lacked and others had. While I think he truly wanted what was best for his sons, I do think he wanted what was best for his sons for the wrong reasons. What is an education if the content is never to be used? Wouldn’t his sons have benefited more from an education tailored to what they did for a living…nurturing the family business? Instead Wang Lung sent his sons away “to get soft” like the rich men…then became angry when his sons became soft, didn’t want to work in the fields, and did not honor the land as Wang Lung had. None of them benefited from wanting what others had.

The land didn’t do Wang Lung any good in the end…the sons were going to get rid of it as soon as he died…they would probably split the money and run through it in no time.

I don’t think I wasted my time…there is so much here about the Chinese culture that I want to know more about…for an author who I was totally unfamiliar with and a setting with which I have no experience, I was completely drawn into this story. I think there are so many life lessons here…namely being satisfied with what you have. Wang Lung spent most of his life working to obtain more…how would his life have been different and how much more happiness and less heartbreak would he have had to bear if he had just been satisfied with enough?